


Losing My Mind

by stilinski_wolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Almost Suicide Attempt, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Claudia is a hallucination, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Post season 3a, Pre-Slash, Stiles comes close to trying but gets stopped before he actually tries, This was written after 3A and after we had gotten promos for season 3B
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilinski_wolf/pseuds/stilinski_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is effected by his, Scott and Allison's sacrifices to save their parents more than the other two, and starts having nightmares so bad he can't sleep properly, and then he starts hallucinating constantly, so much so that it becomes hard to tell what is real and what is not. </p><p>Stiles holes himself up in his room, without knowing what day it is, or how long its been since this all started, but eventually Deaton finds out what is going on with Stiles and how to fix it, and Stiles finally gets relief from the past few months of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Losing My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this before we got any of 3B, but it was based off spoilers and promos we had gotten at the time - and yay me, I was somewhat close to what actually happened...somewhat, okay maybe not, but still ;)

The dreams start not long after Stiles, Scott and Allison sacrificed themselves for their parents. 

Stiles just thinks they’re part of the darkness Deaton had told them would be around their hearts at first. 

They’re regular nightmares, things he dreamt of before he had any darkness around his heart, so he’s actually a little relieved at first when that’s all he has to deal with. It’s not fun, but it’s completely manageable.

But a few weeks later, they start to escalate. His dreams aren’t just fantastical things that would never happen in real life, even with all the supernatural shit that was actually real. No, he starts to dream of people he loves and cares about dying. In varying horrific ways.

One night he dreams that someone, something ripped his father’s insides out. Another night he dreams of Scott getting run through with a pole. Then the next night he dreams of Lydia getting her throat slashed open and Stiles having to watch her bleed to death. He even dreams of his mother being alive only to get her neck snapped right in front of him. And the perpetrator is always an unseen person or thing. 

Stiles always wakes up with a scream on the tip of tongue, sweating and shaking and taking hours to even fall back asleep, if he’s even lucky enough to fall back asleep, anyway.

Stiles had already had trouble sleeping long before there was a permanent darkness around his heart, but now it was even worse. He was lucky if he got two, three hours of sleep a night.

His dad starts to notice, too. Stiles has dark circles under his eyelids nowadays, he was yawning a lot because he rarely ever slept. His walk was sluggish, slower than normal. 

John even expresses his worry to his son, asking if it was anything supernatural, and Stiles lies, say it’s nothing. That it was fine. Stiles could handle some nightmares.

But then, in the fourth week since they’d sacrificed themselves, Stiles hallucinates in class. 

He’d thought he’d been dreaming, but when he’d came out of it, Scott had informed him otherwise.

Stiles tries to ignore it afterward. He’d learn how to handle the darkness eventually. Besides, nothing too bad had happened yet.

Scott tries to bring it up, though. Tries to talk to Stiles about it, tells him that if anyone could understand, it was him. He dealt with the same darkness Stiles did. 

But Stiles couldn’t. He didn’t want to talk about it. The hallucination had just been some weird sign language bullshit in the first place. Nothing too scary about that. Even though Stiles had felt scared in the hallucination. That didn’t matter. 

Even the halloween party they have in Derek’s loft - who had returned the week before - didn’t cheer Stiles up. He’d tried to, he really had, but his chest had hurt, and he’d just felt…empty.

Stiles couldn’t exactly ignore things, though, when he had another hallucination. 

He was at home, doing homework on his computer at his desk when there’d been a knock on his door. 

Figuring it was his dad, Stiles calls, “It’s open!”

But when it opens, it isn’t his dad that stands there, but his mom.

Stiles’s eyes widen and he jumps up from his chair. “Mom?” 

“Hi sweetie,” She says, moving forward into his room. She’s wearing a summer dress, a dress that had been one of her favorites, and she has no shoes on, like she’s right at home, like she never died.

“Wh-but-but you’re dead,” Stiles says shakily, stepping back as she steps toward him.

She smiles, lifting up a hand to cup his cheek. “My sweet baby boy. I never left you.”

“But you-”

“That wasn’t real,” She says, stepping forward to take him by the shoulders. “You dreamed that.”

Stiles knew she wasn’t real, that this wasn’t real. He was hallucinating. But he couldn’t stop a small part of him that hoped, so hoped that this was real. That his mom was actually alive. 

“You just had a nightmare. You told me about it this morning, sweetie. I was just coming to check on you, see if you’re okay." 

"This morning?” Stiles says quietly. 

“You told me about how you’d dreamed of this fantastical world where werewolves were real, that Scott was one and you helped him deal with everything that came with being a werewolf. You told me that I was dead in this world. That it was a horrible nightmare. You told me about this boy…Derek Hale?” Stiles’ eyes widened, shocked. Why would he ever tell his mother or anyone for that matter, about Derek Hale? “How he was a werewolf, too. And that you hated him." 

"I did?” Stiles leaned into his mother’s hands on his shoulders, feeling himself being pulled into the hallucination. Because it was. It was. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. Or was it a dream? It felt like a dream. This surely was a nightmare. Seeing his dead mother, alive and well. Healthy. He had to wake up.

“You told me how this Derek always ruined everything. That he should never have come back to Beacon Hills.”

That sounded like something Stiles might have said nine months ago. But not today. He didn’t think Derek ruined everything. And Stiles actually had felt a pang in his chest thinking about Derek those few weeks he’d been gone. He’d actually…fuck, he had actually missed Derek Hale.

“That’s not right,” Stiles says, shaking his head, stepping back from his mother, no matter how much he didn’t want to do just that. 

“When the door appears, don’t open it,” She says suddenly, moving forward and grabbing his arms, squeezing them.

“Mom?” Stiles asks.

“Don’t question me, Stiles. I’m your mother.” But her face starts to get pale, dark circles appear under eyes, her lips become chapped, and she starts to sweat. 

“Mom,” Stiles says in a small voice. That’s how she’d looked when she was dying.

“You lied to me. You’re not going to listen to what I said,” She says, blood starting to drip out of her nose onto her summer dress.

“What?” Stiles asks, frozen where he stands. He wants to move forward, to try and stop the bleeding coming out of her nose, but he can’t move. “Mom, I don’t understand.”

“You always were an annoying little boy. Who never, ever just listened to what I said.” She’s wiping at the blood coming from her nose, but that only smears it across her face. Her hair starts to come out when she reaches up and tugs at it in frustration. “Stupid, idiotic boy. Listen. Do you understand? LISTEN,” She shouts, pulling two chunks of hair from her head.

"I am. I’m listening. I swear,” Stiles cries out, trying to fucking move.

“No! You’re not! You always do what you want. Always so stubborn. Always so STUPID,” She shouts again, moving forward and taking his face in her hand. “You will die if you don’t listen to me, you ungrateful brat." 

"I’m listening. I swear,” Stiles says, feeling the wet and sticky feel of blood on his face from her hands. 

“Good. When the door appears, don’t open it,” She spits out, and blood spits out of her mouth onto Stiles’ face. Stiles winces, closing his eyes. “NO. LOOK AT ME.” Stiles opens his eyes, and he gasps in horror as the skin starts to melt off her face, and he starts to see some of her skull. “You did this to me. Because you DIDN’T LISTEN. BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T LISTEN TO A WORD I SAID, I AM A SKELETON IN A GRAVE. BECAUSE OF YOU I. AM. DEAD.” 

Then she digs her finger nails into Stiles’ face, scratching him, drawing his own blood to the surface.

Then Stiles gasps, blinking from where he’s sitting in his computer chair. He comes to, looking around his room. It’s completely quiet. His window is open, the night air wafting through and brushing across his skin, cooling it. He looks at his screen and swallows nervously when “wake up” is repeated over and over again on a page opened in Word. 

He tries to go on normally after that. He goes to school, he deals with new supernatural shit that, of course, has come to town because of the newly energized Nematon. Because of Stiles, Scott and Allison. 

But he can’t go on normally. Because he’s afraid to sleep, afraid to dream of more of his loved ones dying, he stays awake all night almost every night, and it’s only when he’s too exhausted to keep his eyes open does he sleep. And he always, always has nightmares.

And he starts to get hallucinations more frequently. 

It takes a toll on Stiles, so much so that he’s too weak to got to school one week, and his father looks him, trying to hide his panic, but Stiles can see. 

His father’s panic causes him to call Scott, who calls Derek, and Stiles is laying in bed when they come in.

“Stiles…” Scott says tentatively, moving forward as Derek trails behind him, watching Stiles closely.

“Hey,” Stiles says, and his voice is hoarse. 

“Your dad says you haven’t been sleeping,” Scott says, moving forward to sit on the side of the bed. 

“I can’t.” And Stiles has to clear his throat as he slowly sits up. “I can’t,” He repeats.

“Because of the nightmares?” Scott asks.

Stiles nods, looks up and meets Derek’s eyes, looking down after only a moment. But in that moment, Stiles had felt something he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before.

“Scott says you’re having hallucinations,” Derek murmurs, speaking for the first time.

Stiles swallows, looks up at Scott. “It was one time.”

“I don’t think so.” Derek says, taking a step forward. “Your dad showed us all the sheets of paper that have ‘wake up’ written on them.”

Stiles snaps his head over to his desk, and swears when he sees all his papers gone. “Well fuck.” 

“Stiles, you’re going to be okay. You’ll get through this,” Scott says.

“Of course I will,” Stiles nods, trying to smile and obviously failing if the look on Scott and Derek’s face is anything to go by. 

=*=

The hallucinations escalate. One minute he’s in the what he knows is the real world, and the next he’s in a complete different one. Once he’s friends with everyone that he’s friends with in the real world, but everyone’s human, and they’re just eating dinner together, laughing and chatting. And it seems normal. 

Once he’s walking home when he absently walks into another house, and Derek greets him with a kiss, and Stiles startles, pushes Derek back, asking him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. And Derek smiles and tells him that he’s cute and that while Derek might indulge him in roleplaying from time to time, it really isn’t Derek’s thing.

In another one Stiles is driving to school when he ends up in an accounting building, and he apparently has a job as an accountant.

Then he hallucinates Peter killing his father, and then Peter turns into his alpha form and guts Stiles.

Some hallucinations are harmless, really. Showing Stiles what a normal life would be like. Others are like the one with his mother and the one with Peter. 

Stiles comes to less and less, and whenever he does, he’s written ‘wake up’ over and over again on whatever surface is closest to him.

One time he comes to with ‘wake up’ written all over one of his walls.

It’s scaring Stiles, and he starts to hole himself up in his room, ignores his dad pounding on the door, asking Stiles to let him in, ignores his father when he bursts in anyway.

He’s starting to lose time, lose days. Lose the knowledge of what’s real and what’s not real.

One day, Stiles is in his room curled up against the wall when Derek appears, coming over and crouching in front of Stiles. “Stiles.”

Stiles blinks at Derek. His face is soft, calm. Not angry. Stiles right away assumes he’s hallucinating. This Derek isn’t the Derek he knows.

“Derek,” Stiles whispers.

“You have to let Deaton help you. Let us all help you,” Derek says.

“Why?” Stiles asks, “There’s nothing wrong with me here,” and he gives into the feeling, the feeling that this is a Derek who he’s with, who he’s in love with, who Stiles is happy with, and leans forward and captures Derek’s mouth in his. But Derek immediately pulls away, looking at Stiles with wide-eyes.

“What are you doing?” Derek snaps.

“Kissing you, silly. We are together, after all,” Stiles smiles and leans forward, looks down in confusion when he feels Derek’s hand against his chest, holding him back.

“No, Stiles. We’re not.”

“But…” Stiles trails off. “We’re together in practically all my hallucinations now." 

Derek’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “This isn’t a hallucination, Stiles.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Of course it is. You’re being nice…and you’re soft, around the edges,” Stiles whispers, and brings up a hand to cup Derek’s cheek, stroking it with his thumb.

Derek inhales sharply. He closes his eyes, leaning into Stiles’ touch, and that just confirms it. Stiles will snap out of this any moment now with ‘wake up’ surrounding him. 

But then Derek jerks back, standing up, shaking his head as if to dispel something from his mind. “No. Stiles, this is real. We aren’t together. We’ve never even…we don’t think of each other like that.”

"Not in the real world,” Stiles says, standing up slowly. “But this isn’t the real world,” Stiles smiles, moving forward into Derek’s personal space.

“Stiles. Stop it. You aren’t hallucinating,” Derek says firmly, grabbing him by the wrists when he starts to reach up in order to touch Derek. 

“I thought you didn’t like roleplaying, silly,” Stiles grins, pushing forward and kissing Derek once more, who moans into the kiss, making Stiles smile, before he wrenches his head back, let’s go of Stiles’ wrists and takes several steps back.

“I’m….I’m going to go. I’m clearly not helping things. I’ll get your dad.”

“Oh, he knows about us. He isn’t going like hurt you or anything,” Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Right,” Derek says slowly, turning on his heels and bolting out of the room.

Stiles furrows his brow in confusion.

=*=

It gets to the point where all Stiles can do is write ‘wake up’ everywhere to know that he’s in the real world. 

He feels like he’s going insane.

He curls up in bed, tries not to cry, but fails. He sobs into his pillow. 

But when he opens his eyes he’s in the middle of the forrest. 

He thinks Deaton comes into his room at one point, but Stiles doesn’t know if it’s real or a hallucination, but in the middle of his visit he starts yelling at Stiles about how pathetic and worthless he is and that the only way to end it all is to kill himself.

But then he starts to think that maybe he should just kill himself. He’s going insane, he has ‘wake up’ written all over his room, on the walls, on a Word document on his laptop, he even carved it into his desk.

Everyone shows up regularly, though. Trying to get Stiles to snap out of it, to stop hallucinating.

But Stiles can’t tell what is real anymore. Because one hallucination has him in the middle of the desert with ‘wake up’ written in the sand all over.

=*=

Stiles reaches his breaking point. When his mother appears again with a knife in her stomach, telling him that it’s his fault that she died, Stiles can’t take it anymore. 

He can’t take this torture anymore.

So when he blinks and sees he’s in his room, alone for once, he knows what he has to do.

He moves downstairs quietly, goes into the kitchen.

If this is real and isn’t a hallucination, then when he stabs himself in the heart, it will all be over. It will be done.

Stiles is shaking, tears falling down his cheeks as he moves over to the rack that held several knives. He takes a hold of the handle of the biggest knife and slowly pulls it out of the knife rack.

Stiles doesn’t even know how long it’s been since he had gone to school. He can’t remember his last clear thought. He can’t remember the last time he felt sane.

He thinks of Derek, though, as he holds the knife up to his chest, hovering over his heart. 

He wonders if he and the real Derek would have ever gotten together like in his hallucinations. Which, when it was Derek, felt more like fantasies than hallucinations. That was the only time Stiles felt sad when the hallucination ended. 

He remembers barely even tolerating Derek, barely even liking the guy. But now, after all this, he thinks he has feelings for Derek.

Even though he can’t remember the last real interaction he had with him.

Closing his eyes, Stiles presses the tip of the knife to his chest, right over his heart. Tears slip down his cheeks.

It will be over.

Finally.

Stiles braces, gets ready to push the knife into him, but then someone’s grabbing his hands, pulling the knife away. “Stiles, what are you doing?”

Stiles slowly opens his eyes. Derek.

“Derek?” Stiles asks.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Derek says shakily, taking the knife and tossing it on the counter and taking Stiles’ face in his hands. “Stiles, why were you going to kill yourself?”

“I had to stop it,” Stiles says slowly. “I can’t take it anymore.”

And Derek’s….crying. Tears run down his cheeks as he pulls Stiles close, hugging him tight. Stiles stares blankly ahead.

“Stiles. This is real. You’ve been hallucinating for months. But Deaton found something. He found something that will work. That’s why I’m here,” Derek pulls pack, holds Stiles gently by his arms.

“Huh?”

“I have to take you to Deaton. We’ll get you fixed. You won’t hallucinate anymore. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you,” Stiles says dully.

“Just come with me. Please,” Derek says desperately.

“But if I kill myself, it will all be over,” Stiles says.

“No. No, it won’t,” Derek shakes his head, tears still falling. “What will the rest of us do? How will your dad live without you? What about Scott? What about…what about me?” Derek says, swallowing thickly.

“You?” Stiles says, brow furrowing in confusion.

“Stiles, do you remember any of our conversations from these past months?” Derek asks tentatively.

“I remember us being together,” Stiles says, a soft smile forming on his face.

Derek shakes his head. “No, we’ve never been together. But you kissed me, once. Months ago.”

Stiles furrows his brow. “What are you talking about? We’ve done more than just kissing,” Stiles smirks.

Derek shakes his head. “No. No we haven’t. This is real, Stiles. I’m real.” 

“Prove it,” Stiles says suspiciously.

“Just let me take you to Deaton. That will prove it to you." 

"Where’s my dad?” Stiles asks.

“He’s waiting at Deaton’s. Everyone is. We all want to see you get better.”

“It hurts. Right here,” Stiles says, placing his hand over his heart. “It feels…hollow. Empty.”

“Stiles…” Derek trails off, looking like he contemplating telling Stiles something or not. “You didn’t hallucinate because of the darkness around your heart.”

“Huh?” Stiles says dumbly.

“The darkness allowed you to be susceptible to things you hadn’t been before. It opened you up to danger, to…evil.”

“What are you saying?” Stiles says slowly.

“There’s this thing called a sleep demon. The darkness caused the nightmares, which left you more open and vulnerable. Weak,” Derek swallows heavily, his adam’s apple bobbing. “It was able to slip into your consciousness and cause the hallucinations. It’s been feeding off your…off the insanity it caused.”

Stiles looks down at the ground, realization overcoming him, making him look up at Derek with wide-eyes. “So a…a demon has possessed me?”

“Not exactly,” Derek winces. “It more…took up residence. You’re still you, so it isn’t possessing you. It’s kind of…visiting, I guess." 

"So…”

“Deaton knows a way to get it out of you and kill it. It will all be over,” Derek takes Stiles’ face in hands again, resting his forehead against Stiles’. “It will all be over.”

Stiles lets out of a sob. “It will all be over?”

“Yes. Yes,” Derek says, kissing Stiles’ temple before enveloping him in his arms again. “You’re going to be okay.”

Stiles can’t help it. He cries. He sobs and sobs, clinging to Derek as he lets it out, lets out all the pain and misery he’s been in for months. Fuck, it could be 2012 now for all Stiles knew.

But it was going to be all over.

Stiles would be normal again. Sane.

The thought made Stiles sob harder, and Derek held on tighter, softly kissing the side of Stiles’ head and making Stiles melt into his embrace, relaxing his tense muscles.

When Stiles finally stopped crying, Derek took him to Deaton’s, and Deaton got the demon out of him, was able to kill it, and Stiles felt like a weight was being lifted off his shoulders when it happened.

He also apparently passed out for a couple hours, and when he woke up again, Stiles had a tattoo on his chest, which Deaton informed him would keep any and all demons, or any other supernatural creature, out of him, away from him.

Stiles cried all over again.

But Derek was there, holding his hand.

Stiles slept soundly that night, and when he woke up the next day, Derek was sleeping in his computer chair. The phrase ‘wake up’ had been washed off his walls as much as it could.

A new desk sat where his old one had been, ‘wake up’ free.

Stiles smiles softly, and then got up to take a shower without disturbing Derek.

He went through the whole day without hallucinating, and if felt so refreshing, and Stiles was filled with such relief that he cried again.

But this time, they were good tears. 

Stiles wasn’t quite whole, never really would be, but he didn’t feel broken, either. He felt…content, felt right. 

Felt sane.


End file.
